th him. His seed also will I make
to endure forever and his throne as the days of Heaven. If his
children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break
my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their
transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor
suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor
alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my
holiness that I will not lie unto David."--Ps. 89:27-35. David himself
was a case in point. After his terrible sin, God sent word to him by
the prophet Nathan, "Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of
the Lord, to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite
with the sword and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain
him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword
shall never depart from thine house."--2 Sam. 12:9, 10. "And David
said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said
unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not
die."--2 Sam. 12:13. God has but one way of putting away sin. "Apart
from shedding of blood is no remission."--Heb. 9:22. "For the life of
the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar
to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh
an atonement for the soul."--Lev. 17:11. But God does not stop there.
"Howbeit because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the
enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto
thee shall surely die."--1 Sam. 12:14. (Let the reader notice that
God, foreseeing that people would ridicule the idea of God saving
David, calls it blasphemy and calls those who do it "the enemies of
the Lord.") David fasted and prayed for the child. On the seventh day
the child died, "But when David saw that his servants whispered, David
perceived that the child was dead; therefore David said unto his
servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead. Then David
arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself, and changed his
apparel, and came into the house of the Lord and worshipped: then he
came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him
and he did eat. Then said his servants unto him, What thing is this
that thou hast done? Thou didst fast and weep for the child, while it
was alive; but when the child was dead, thou